Jerhume Brunnen-G

Ok so roads are important infrastructure. A lot of stuff that's important happens on roads. Now, let's imagine that quadrillionaire Matt Stench has decided that the next big tech innovation is the Wide Car. It's a car that takes up six lanes despite seating only one passenger.

The Wide Car is supposed to be the future, and everyone's going to be driving Wide Cars, even though nobody who makes Wide Cars is turning a profit. Employers are offering Wide Cars as an employee benefit, and getting "nah." Some employers are going as far as demanding their employees drive Wide Cars, and the result is that people take time out of their workdays to get in the mandatory gas usage for their Wide Car before driving home in a regular car.

In spite of the fact that the Wide Car is clearly set to fail, there's an enormous push to expand to twelve-lane roads to accommodate a bunch of Wide Cars that simply will not materialize. This is not an organic response to demand, but a speculative investment that amplifies the existing issues with road development for no good reason.

“And I mean, maybe you can forget that you did that once. Bit of a stretch, but sure. But twice? You forgot you sold your soul twice? What sort of moron do you have to be to do that?

“That’s a quote, by the way. Giovanni Zatara—you know, that wizard in the suit who works with the Justice League? He looks all stuffy but yeah he actually said that. To me. Worst moment of my life.

“Anyway Chas and I are in a pub one day and he’s like, ‘John, mate, you’re really lucky I’m immortal.’ And I’m like, ‘What?’

“And Chas says, ‘yeah, I keep dying on your jobs. Hurts every time.’ And then he looks at my face—which looks approximately like this at that point, by the way—and goes, ‘Mate, you didn’t notice?’

“Let me tell you, I had no idea what was going on.

“And then I hear this voice, and it’s deep. Like, this is Darth Vader deep, okay? And this voice just booms out, ‘JOHN CONSTANTINE. WHY HAVE YOU ENTERED THE TOWER OF FATE.’

“And I’m like, ‘I’m sorry! I was looking for the bathroom!’

“Here’s the thing, though: none of you have ever screwed up at your job so badly that Batman shows up.

“Let me tell you: when you’re standing in the smoking ruins of an Arby’s that used to be possessed by a minor demon and you thought it would be smart to summon a different minor demon to fight it until it got tired and left—that’s why the Arby’s blew up, by the way—the first thing you think when you see a jagged black shape advancing on you isnt ‘dude in a costume.’ No, no, you’re gonna think, ‘AUGH DEMON’ and react accordingly.

“So now Batman is standing there, expressionless, his face covered in holy water, and he says to me—and I can’t get my voice deep enough for this, so you guys will just have to imagine it—he says, ‘John. Explain to me exactly what happened here.’

Yesterday I wrote a post breaking down some of the differences in the various home media releases for Babylon 5 (The original DVDs, the recent remaster released in Blu-ray, and the DVD release of that same remaster). I used to term "widescreen safe" when describing the live-action sequences of the original production, and afterwards I began to think about this process more in-depth.

For those who don't know, "widescreen safe" is a filmmaking process where you originally plan for a "fullscreen" broadcast (4:3 aspect ratio), but stage the set, characters, and camera to capture enough surrounding space to 'fill out' a "widescreen" image (16:9 aspect ratio) without breaking the immersion. All behind-the-scenes aspects of filmmaking (lights, microphones, puppeteers, set supports, etc.) are moved far enough out of the way that they won't show up on camera even with the wider view. The extras and background characters are likewise told to stay "in character" on the edge of the set, instead of stopping the instant they're out of view of the 'main' camera angle.

Babylon 5 famously did this in the early/mid-'90s, because even though fullscreen was the industry standard for TV in the USA, widescreen TVs already existed and the creators realized that in the coming years they would become the new default. So the entire series was shot on 35mm film as Widescreen Safe: The main characters and primary action would always be in the center-focus, so when it was cropped to fullscreen aspect ratio for broadcast the "full story" would be shown, but when widescreen technology became the norm in a few years they would be able to use the same footage for the new technology.

Nothing plot-critical was ever "hidden" in the widescreen shots, but they gave a wider view of the world. We see more random aliens walking in the background in the hallways, more Earthforce officers pressing buttons in the command center, more restaurant patrons eating dinner over the shoulder of the main characters, etc. More "flavor".

My favorite moment captured in the widescreen area was actually an accident, but it was perfect. From the episodes "Severed Dreams" in season three, which culminates in a masive space battle between Babylon 5 itself (and allies) against other Earthforce ships who support President Clark and his tyrannical regime. During the shooting a special effect went awry, and part of the set that was just supposed to spark/flash actually caught fire for real. Instead of halting shooting and ruining the shot, an extra was given a fire extinguisher and told to blow the fire out. This is one of those trivia bits that fans LOVE to point out as a Real Moment.

In the fullscreen shot, all you see is his arm extending from off-screen behind main character John Sheridan.

But in the widescreen shot, you actually see the actor walk in from off-screen and blow out the fire.

Would you know you were missing anything if all you'd seen was the fullscreen version? Not at all. You'd still see the fire over John Sheridan's shoulder and the fire extinguisher would blow it out. But with the widescreen version you also see another character. We never learn his name, and I don't even know if this guy appeared in another background shot after this episode, but he's a person.

1.there were trees at the beginning of the world! there were trees so long ago that they predate bacteria that causes wood to decay. when a tree fell, it would lie there in stasis and there wasn’t any way of breaking down wood xylem on a molecular level in that way.

2. it seems obvious to say, but wood eating bacteria are literally incapable of comprehending what they’re breaking down. It’s just not information conciously available to a microorganism. they don’t know what they’re deconstructing, where it came from, bacteria have no way to even fathom the existence of a tree as a concept.

3. Regardless of the facts above, the world we live in today is a world where wood inevitably decomposes

it is worth fighting the unkillable god no matter how pointless it seems. it is worth taking the risk even though youre trying to accomplish something impossible. the reality in which you live was also once reality in which trees didn’t rot. You live in a reality that allows for existence before the possibility of destruction. you live in a reality where uncomprehending microbes break down matter that is so far beyond the scope of their comprehension that it feels comical to specify something so obvious. you live in a reality that occasionally allows unshakeable physical truths to be altered with no warning.

It is worth fighting the unkillable god because trees are so old they predate the source of their destruction, and it still did not spare them. It is worth fighting the unkillable god because bacteria rots unthinkingly, because there is room in our cosmos for destruction without comprehension on the part of the destroyer. It is worth fighting the unkillable god because now and then reality retracts the promise of immortality without fanfare, and when that happens there is no mercy for the ancient. the unmaking is not softer for the desecrators ignorance. for all things, existence is endless until the exact point where it ends.

fight the unkillable god, because you may be the first bacterium to take a successful bite.

fight the unkillable god, so as to set foot onto the path which leads to the god being killable.

the bacteria that couldn't eat the tree and the bacteria that could eat the tree had the same general understanding of the tree.

#the show never addresses it because it can’t draw attention to the cracks in its own premise this way #but I think Daniel as a character only works if he hates pseudoarchaeology even MORE than the average archaeologist #because they make him look bad! #unfortunately he can never express in a way that makes anyone think he’s NOT a racist crackpot #because anyone he tells will just think it’s racist crackpot infighting

Daniel:

I do not find this to be an efficient way to absorb information. I am bored and distracted by the time the largely unnecessary introduction is over. I can't use ctrl+f to find the specific information I'm looking for. If there are instructions to follow, I don't want to have to constantly pause and back up to the part I need.

Even before I had such minimal knowledge as I do now, I thought that “vulcan” was a very appropriate word for them. It’s not that they don’t have emotions, if anything they have more than humans, they just run hard and deep, like volcanoes. You don’t want that thing to erupt.

The most conspicuous addition is a pair of twin Muppets - Sovak and T'pela. They’re eternal toddlers, much like our own Elmo, and thus at the same stage as a large chunk of the target audience - when much of their early development of emotional regulation skills take place. Sovak is quick to panic, often getting himself into danger trying to hide, or causing small boo-boos to his friends and teachers and parents clinging to them for dear life. T'pela is quick to anger, often breaking things or frightening other children - barely at a more advanced stage in their own emotional regulation skill development - until she calms down. The two are never shamed for their outbursts - after all, they’re only toddlers - but at least once an episode, one or both of them is sent into, well, an episode.

And from there, it’s up to an adult to step in and coach them through their grounding exercises.

But again, they are only toddlers, so they don’t know enough math or phonics to find a good grounding exercise on their own! How are they supposed to count by threes if they don’t know how to count to three at all? How are they supposed to find everything in their vicinity that begins with the letter B(-equivalent) if they don’t know what the letter B is? Well, it’s time for a lesson!

And so, once we’ve had our lesson about the wonders of 3, or B, or any other lesson of the day, we can calmly - and logically - resolve whatever caused the problem.

I don't have any experience with the weirder corners of university campuses – my work in that particular job just never happened to take me there. I did, however, once have to do a cable trace in the basement of a former Christian elementary school. It had haphazardly been subdivided into numerous tiny rooms, some as little as ten feet across, with no central hallways or apparent floor plan. Every single room was, for reasons that were and remain unclear to me, full of broken kitchen appliances. One room in particular contained an enormous industrial freezer unit that was larger in its smallest dimension than any of the doors leading to it. Was it delivered in pieces and assembled on site? Did they build the room around it? That one still bothers me a little bit.